by Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY Sports

by Jarrett Bell, USA TODAY Sports

This is a brave new world for Chris Johnson, who's looking for a job after giving up his fast-little 191-pound body for six years for the Tennessee Titans.

This is a brave new world for Chris Johnson, who's looking for a job after giving up his fast, 191-pound body for six years for the Tennessee Titans.

It's a cold business.

Johnson, dumped while carrying an $8 million salary, surely has been warned. The landscape for running backs has shifted dramatically since he signed his six-year, $54 million extension.

Those were the good ol' days for runners. Ten days after CJ2K struck his deal in September 2011, Minnesota Vikings star Adrian Peterson re-upped with a seven-year, $96 million contract.

The position is as risky as ever. One cut, one torn anterior cruciate ligament, and you might never be the same. The defenders hit just as hard. Helmet-to-helmet contact is legal in the tackle box.

But the pay scale has plummeted.

This tells us something about what Johnson, 28, and his agent, Joel Segal, are sorting through.

The falloff marks the most acute decline in running back value in NFL history. Even with the salary cap and NFL revenues climbing to all-time highs.

Shoot, in last year's draft. not a single running back was selected in the first round. It was the first time that had happened since the common draft began in 1967.

Now this: Have you seen what some of these running backs are getting on the market?

Knowshon Moreno helped the Denver Broncos get to the Super Bowl and ranked fifth in the NFL with 1,586 yards from scrimmage. He draws raves for pass protection, too. Yet all the first back off the board in the 2009 draft could get on the open market was a one-year deal from the Miami Dolphins worth $3.275 million.

In this year's market, Moreno got close to top dollar ... for a running back. Darren Sproles averages $3.5 million on his extension after his trade to the Philadelphia Eagles, which matches what Donald Brown and Toby Gerhart average with their respective moves to the San Diego Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars.

It wasn't too long ago that Carolina Panthers gave DeAngelo Williams a five-year, $44.8 million extension in (2009) and Michael Turner got $15 million guaranteed and his first starting job from the Atlanta Falcons as the top free agent back (2008). Those kind of deals have dried up for running backs.

Johnson - coming off a career-low 3.9 yard average and rehabbing from arthroscopic knee surgery - could get a new deal this year paying half of what he would have been paid in 2014 under his old contract and it would still be among the top contracts signed running backs this offseason.

Certainly, skill, age and injury history are all factors. It's not like Peterson is on the market. Still, the window for running backs to receive huge pay days - particularly with a rookie wage scale - has gotten increasingly smaller.

Timing is essential. It has been less than three years since Maurice Jones-Drew won the NFL rushing title with 1,606 yards for the Jaguars. His new free agent deal with the Oakland Raiders (three years, $7.5million) is essentially a one-year deal with $1.2million guaranteed.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be running backs. Every team needs one or a few (imagine the Seattle Seahawks without Marshawn Lynch), but they are so underappreciated in a pass-heavy game with major specialization and a dime-a-dozen mentality among teams when it comes to finding backs.

Now it's Johnson's turn to explore the market, five long years since he joined an exclusive club by rushing for more than 2,000 yards in a season.

If only he could get a 2004 deal. A decade ago, LaDainian Tomlinson signed a six-year, $60million contract that topped Clinton Portis' eight-year, $50.5million deal.

When the Titans shopped Johnson, the New York Jets, Falcons and Buffalo Bills were among teams that showed interest. That's encouraging enough. But with his big salary attached, there was no deal to seal. And he was too expensive for the Titans to keep, rebuilding with new coach Ken Whisenhunt. They cleared $6 million in cap room by cutting Johnson.

Now Segal is charged to find another high-profile client a home. Three weeks ago, he helped Michael Vick land with the Jets. Last week, DeSean Jackson bounced from Philadelphia to Washington.

Segal declined to comment when reached over the weekend by USA TODAY Sports.

Yet Segal spun about Johnson's durability (he has played the past five years without missing a game) and his big-play ability, when asked on ESPN last week how he would sell Johnson to potential teams.

Good luck.

Johnson can surely help a lot of teams. But he will soon discover the reality of whether he's an exception or the rule when it comes to the value of a running back with mileage.